In the age of the single download, Jeff Harford rediscovers the album.
Rowland's vexation was the fuel that powered him. If everyone was the enemy, he could claim the high ground along with the right to prescribe how things should be, and on the dissolution of his punk band the Killjoys he determined that the only true course was that of soul music.
Along with ex-Killjoy Kevin ''Al'' Archer, he set about auditioning more than 30 musicians for a new eight-piece horn-driven soul band that would develop its chops on the live circuit before targeting a record contract. That achieved, covers would drop away from the set, revealing a sharply tailored collection of original songs that would make for a stunning album.
So it was that the unit that delivered Searching For The Young Soul Rebels (1980) embodied values not seen before in a soul outfit. There was due reverence for Stax, Motown and northern soul influences but Rowland's insistence that the Dexys band together as a brotherhood, uniformed in the garb of the New York docker and adhering to a ''no drugs or alcohol'' regime, imbued their music with a fiery obstinacy.
That drill-square camaraderie can be heard in the band's unison backing vocals in chart-topping single Geno, a tribute to American R&B singer Geno Washington, and throughout in the precision of the horn section's manoeuvres. Tracks such as Tell Me When My Light Turns Green and There There My Dear pack a serious attitudinal punch, while also trading on danceable grooves and Rowland's strangled vocal hooks.
Dexys would not live long in this, or any, incarnation. Donkey jackets made way for dungarees, and Come On Eileen's Celtic character soon overwhelmed the street-savvy personality of this rousing debut.
